Abstract.
The formation of massive stars still has many unsolved questions.
Here I review some of the many fantastic results that have come
about through Herschel observations as part of the Herschel OB Young
Stellar Objects Survey (HOBYS). Through this guaranteed time key
program, the initial conditions of the high-mass star formation
process are studied, providing insight into the earliest stages of
how massive stars form and evolve. The specific focus here is on
the Rosette Molecular Cloud (RMC) in which the pre- and
protostellar objects have been identified and classified. Among the
studies presented here are the detection of what may be the
identification of massive prestellar cores, a temperature gradient
observed across the cloud, and the clump mass function for pre- and
protostellar clumps.
Key words: star formation: high mass -- Herschel -- HOBYS